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In economics, a Ponzi Scheme is borrowing from one investor promising a certain return without doing anything real to produce that result. Instead, you borrow more money from another investor to pay off the first one. This continually snowballs until the system eventually breaks and Bernie Madoff is put in jail for fraud.

Anyway, I think a variant of this is happening with our player contracts. JR is constantly restructuring contracts to be continuously more back-loaded. Players are trailing off in their playing ability while simultaneously getting more and more overpaid. Diehl, for example, despite having produced little in the past 2 seasons, has a ginormous cap hit in 2013, even if cut. Several other players leave us in similar situations (Rolle, Canty). JR is constantly restructuring other contracts to pay off the current ones and squeeze in that extra FA signing. And we're not about to cut overpaid players because the cap hits would then be rendered immediately in full instead of over a period of years.

I think we need to spend one year "rebuilding". I don't mean this in the traditional sense (hence the quotation marks), but we need to cut a lot of underperforming and/or overpaid players that are still under contact. The aforementioned Diehl, Rolle, and Canty, as well as guys like Tuck and Webster. Take all the cap hits up front. Yes the 2013 team would not be the greatest incarnation of the Giants in the world. But we would emerge in 2014 with a crapton of cap space and no overpaid underachievers on the team. From there, the possibilities are endless...

PS: I am not in favor of firing Reese. I merely want us to cut the cruft out of the team to give us a better future return. I wouldn't mind one losing season if it meant we would be incredible strong the following year. Plus it would be less stressful i think...

Are you saying Reese is alone in this? No other teams face these problems? We don't wan them to spend the CAP to be able to contend?

“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.” MB Rule # 1

Steve Smith, Kevin Boss and David Diehl are not examples of what we are talking about.

Sure they are ... we didn't re-sign or restructure Smith or Boss and we did restructure Diehl.

They're just examples of why the OP is incorrect (or at the very least, not as informed as our GM).

At the end of the day it's all educated guess work. When's the right time to cut someone. When's the right time to re-sign or restructure. When's the right time to pull out the FA card. Some bail earlier on players, some hold on to them too long. You only really know if you're wrong or right after the fact.

And after the fact, we're all geniuses.

CWeb is a great example. He was great one year and mediocre the next. That was a few years ago. He was a top 3 CB last year. Now everyone wants him cut because he got burnt on some nationally televised games. He also played really well in those very same games (the Packers game comes to mind).

Are you saying Reese is alone in this? No other teams face these problems? We don't wan them to spend the CAP to be able to contend?

I think it really started after the 2007 season when we handed out huge contracts to some key players. We seem to still be dealing with the consequences of that. Then came the Rolle contract and Eli's. More importantly, there came the Eli restructure.
I personally have no idea what the plan is going forward and I'm in no position to definitively state that we are in big trouble in our cap situation.
But logic would suggest that all these contracts and restructures (to fit new contracts under the cap) can come back to bite us.
Are we the only team with this problem?....Absolutely not. Is it still a problem for us?......Probably.

Sure they are ... we didn't re-sign or restructure Smith or Boss and we did restructure Diehl.

They're just examples of why the OP is incorrect (or at the very least, not as informed as our GM).

At the end of the day it's all educated guess work. When's the right time to cut someone. When's the right time to re-sign or restructure. When's the right time to pull out the FA card. Some bail earlier on players, some hold on to them too long. You only really know if you're wrong or right after the fact.

And after the fact, we're all geniuses.

Well since you responded to my post lets deal with what I said.
We had no reason to "restructure" Steve Smith or Kevin Boss because they were not under contract at the time and were free agents.
So the example of those two players is completely moot. We offered them what we thought they would be worth to us and they went to other teams with better offers.
"Restructuring" is really borrowing from the future to make room for the present. It esentially gives a player more money down the road in order to reduce his current cap number. That practice can create huge problems down the road.

Well since you responded to my post lets deal with what I said.
We had no reason to "restructure" Steve Smith or Kevin Boss because they were not under contract at the time and were free agents.
So the example of those two players is completely moot. We offered them what we thought they would be worth to us and they went to other teams with better offers.
"Restructuring" is really borrowing from the future to make room for the present. It esentially gives a player more money down the road in order to reduce his current cap number. That practice can create huge problems down the road.

You can't talk about restructuring in a vacuum. It all comes as part and parcel of who you sign, cut, re-sign, FA and so on.

Hence my points on Boss and Smith.

Yes if done too much, restructuring presents many problems down the road. The same could be said for any practice. The OP is contending (and you're agreeing by inference) that we restructure too much. I don't believe that to be correct. I think (at least thus far) that we've done a fairly decent job of maintaining a talent level that has produced consistent results.

And it's not like Reese (et al) is doing this without a calculator and calendar in hand.

Also, we're do for a cap hike in 2014 so some of this back loading is more than likely being put to use with that in mind. At least that would be my hope. In the end, I trust the guys who are smarter than I am about this and do this for a living over the board pundits. But yes I do share the same concerns.

I think it really started after the 2007 season when we handed out huge contracts to some key players. We seem to still be dealing with the consequences of that. Then came the Rolle contract and Eli's. More importantly, there came the Eli restructure.
I personally have no idea what the plan is going forward and I'm in no position to definitively state that we are in big trouble in our cap situation.
But logic would suggest that all these contracts and restructures (to fit new contracts under the cap) can come back to bite us.
Are we the only team with this problem?....Absolutely not. Is it still a problem for us?......Probably.

I agree none of us have a clue as to how all of this works.

“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.” MB Rule # 1

I think it really started after the 2007 season when we handed out huge contracts to some key players. We seem to still be dealing with the consequences of that. Then came the Rolle contract and Eli's. More importantly, there came the Eli restructure.
I personally have no idea what the plan is going forward and I'm in no position to definitively state that we are in big trouble in our cap situation.
But logic would suggest that all these contracts and restructures (to fit new contracts under the cap) can come back to bite us.
Are we the only team with this problem?....Absolutely not. Is it still a problem for us?......Probably.

The Tuck and Osi contracts were brilliant. We paid new guys a lot up front with what turned out to be, fairly cheap contracts down the road. That's why Osi had such a problem with his after the fact.

Eli's contract is standard for a QB of his tier. That's the price you pay for having an elite QB (*smirk*).

Rolle is the biggest FA signing Reese has undertaken. I thought we overpaid for him at the time and I still do. However we also won a SB with him on the team, so there you go. And we can cut him either this year or next and not have a ton of dead money lying around ($4 mill over the next two years).

If we restructured Rolle, then I think that would be a mistake but again, smarter heads than mine are making these calls.

In economics, a Ponzi Scheme is borrowing from one investor promising a certain return without doing anything real to produce that result. Instead, you borrow more money from another investor to pay off the first one. This continually snowballs until the system eventually breaks and Bernie Madoff is put in jail for fraud.

Anyway, I think a variant of this is happening with our player contracts. JR is constantly restructuring contracts to be continuously more back-loaded. Players are trailing off in their playing ability while simultaneously getting more and more overpaid. Diehl, for example, despite having produced little in the past 2 seasons, has a ginormous cap hit in 2013, even if cut. Several other players leave us in similar situations (Rolle, Canty). JR is constantly restructuring other contracts to pay off the current ones and squeeze in that extra FA signing. And we're not about to cut overpaid players because the cap hits would then be rendered immediately in full instead of over a period of years.

I think we need to spend one year "rebuilding". I don't mean this in the traditional sense (hence the quotation marks), but we need to cut a lot of underperforming and/or overpaid players that are still under contact. The aforementioned Diehl, Rolle, and Canty, as well as guys like Tuck and Webster. Take all the cap hits up front. Yes the 2013 team would not be the greatest incarnation of the Giants in the world. But we would emerge in 2014 with a crapton of cap space and no overpaid underachievers on the team. From there, the possibilities are endless...

PS: I am not in favor of firing Reese. I merely want us to cut the cruft out of the team to give us a better future return. I wouldn't mind one losing season if it meant we would be incredible strong the following year. Plus it would be less stressful i think...

Great post. You have good points and normally I'd agree with you, but the reason why it's actually workable (and we may not need cut people, eat the cap hits, and re-tool) is that most of the dead wood contracts are up in the next couple years anyway. The only exceptions are Rolle and Canty.

Osi, Tuck, KP (due to injury), Nicks (injury), Webster and DD all failed to show up this year. Yet they are all free agents in the next couple years. If we find stop gaps for them, we may still be roughly where we were this season - which was one play away from the playoffs. I don't think the Giants expect Eli to struggle as he did in some games next year also.

Reese said we're only a few pieces away from another run. I'm not crazy about Fewell staying, but I think what he said is true. Keep in mind that we have Terrell Thomas coming back from injury also as a wildcard. Our defense on paper looks at least average. And average, with Eli and his WRs should be good enough to win. As crappy as we were on defense, they still only gave up 20 a game.

You can't talk about restructuring in a vacuum. It all comes as part and parcel of who you sign, cut, re-sign, FA and so on.

Hence my points on Boss and Smith.

Yes if done too much, restructuring presents many problems down the road. The same could be said for any practice. The OP is contending (and you're agreeing by inference) that we restructure too much. I don't believe that to be correct. I think (at least thus far) that we've done a fairly decent job of maintaining a talent level that has produced consistent results.

And it's not like Reese (et al) is doing this without a calculator and calendar in hand.

Also, we're do for a cap hike in 2014 so some of this back loading is more than likely being put to use with that in mind. At least that would be my hope. In the end, I trust the guys who are smarter than I am about this and do this for a living over the board pundits. But yes I do share the same concerns.

Well your blind trust in JR or anyone is novel, but a tad naive in my view.
Yes JR does his best but the reality is that we have a huge cap number this season due in part to our constant policy of restructuring huge contracts. An example is Eli's contract. We restructured his contract last season to reduce his cap number in 2012 to around $9MM. We did that to make room for guys like Bennett and other FA's, Well the consequence of that is his cap hit for the next 2 years is over $20MM.

Our GM is fallible just like anyone else. As I said, i don't know what their plan is this coming year. I'm sure the Webby cap hit last year and this coming year is a source of great regret. (Again..JR is fallible) I know they are doing what they believe they need to, but that doesn't make it right.
Its not unreasonable to question some of these moves and wonder aloud on the New York Giants MB whether or not some of these decisions will hurt our chances down the road.

The Tuck and Osi contracts were brilliant. We paid new guys a lot up front with what turned out to be, fairly cheap contracts down the road. That's why Osi had such a problem with his after the fact.

Eli's contract is standard for a QB of his tier. That's the price you pay for having an elite QB (*smirk*).

Rolle is the biggest FA signing Reese has undertaken. I thought we overpaid for him at the time and I still do. However we also won a SB with him on the team, so there you go. And we can cut him either this year or next and not have a ton of dead money lying around ($4 mill over the next two years).

If we restructured Rolle, then I think that would be a mistake but again, smarter heads than mine are making these calls.

Osi's contract was far from brilliant. They front loaded that deal giving Osi the power near the end of the deal to whine his way to more money. Renegotiating Osi this season was a mistake. He was the invisible man as he often is. At least we don't have to deal with that guy anymore. Let him go to NE where they won't give him near what he thinks he's worth. The reality is that Osi got the best of our FO.
The Tuck deal was far too many years for a guy who had injury problems as far back as his years at ND. Love the guy, but he simply wasn't worth the money we gave him.